Motherboard Guide

Introduction

Introduction

In an effort to improve their standing in the high-end motherboard market, ECS launched the newest member to its 'Extreme' motherboard line up - the ECS PN2 SLI2+. Based on NVIDIA's nForce 680i SLI, the PN2 SLI2+ aims to be the ultimate motherboard for the Intel Core 2 platforms, succeeding the short reign of the PN1 SLI2, which was based on the older nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition.

What's more, the PN2 SLI2+ is another board that follows the stock NVIDIA OEM design, which doesn't really come as a surprise since it is no real secret who NVIDIA's contract manufacturers are. Instead of developing and qualifying a new product, ECS makes use of the existing design to their advantage, which not only includes the board, but NVIDIA's BIOS as well. Gone is the familiar purple PCB and gone is the 'Extreme' plaque. To all extents, the PN2 SLI2+ we received is the same board as the recently reviewed Biostar TF680i SLI Deluxe, down to the same BIOS revision. The difference? An Elitegroup brand sticker to differentiate it from others. So, the question that remains is whether the same board can be different. Let's find out shall we?

While the board inside the box might be of OEM design, it is still part of the ECS Extreme family and being that, the PN2 SLI2+ comes with a generous bundle of peripherals as listed below: